Work

Searching for Something Familiar or Novel: Top–Down Attentional Selection of Specific Items or Object Categories

Year: 2013

Type: article

Abstract: Visual search is often guided by top-down attentional templates that specify target-defining features. But search can also occur at the level of object categories. We measured the N2pc component, a marker of attentional target selection, in two visual search experiments where targets were defined either categorically (e.g., any letter) or at the item level (e.g., the letter C) by a prime stimulus. In both experiments, an N2pc was elicited during category search, in both familiar and novel contexts (Experiment 1) and with symbolic primes (Experiment 2), indicating that, even when targets are only defined at the category level, they are selected at early sensory-perceptual stages. However, the N2pc emerged earlier and was larger during item-based search compared with category-based search, demonstrating the superiority of attentional guidance by item-specific templates. We discuss the implications of these findings for attentional control and category learning.

Source: Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_00352

Authors: Rachel Wu, Gaia Scerif, Richard N. Aslin, Tim J. Smith, Rebecca Nako, Martin Eimer

Institutions: University of Rochester, Birkbeck, University of London, University of Oxford

Language: English

Topic: Visual perception and processing mechanisms

Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience

Field: Neuroscience

Domain: Life Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: Economic and Social Research Council, National Eye Institute, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

Awards: Images in the mind: The control of visual object selection by attentional templates, Statistical approaches to linguistic pattern learning, G8595019654, Core grant for vision research